


How Your Father Met Your Mother (not to mention the rest of us)

by APermanentResidentOfTheFriendzone



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, F/M, First time writing, Human AU, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-08-21 09:33:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16574060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APermanentResidentOfTheFriendzone/pseuds/APermanentResidentOfTheFriendzone
Summary: Well, here it is. My first attempt at a Steven Universe fanfic. I’d like to send a special thank you to VanillaSkyce. Vanilla, thank you, one of our comment discussions over The Pearl Eternal gave me the courage to put this up. A suggestion to anyone who happens to read this: I’d still suggest that you read my OC description for Serpentine before you read this, just so you have a half-decent idea of who Serpentine is.





	1. Telling a Story

The low fuel warning lit up on the dashboard, it’s bright orange glow making the content of its message very clear to Serpentine while he was driving. It was almost funny how that auto-repair shop had the nerve to charge such a steep flat fee in the first place, and yet they didn’t seem to to have the basic courtesy to fill up your fuel tank once they were done. Almost. But, cars cost a lot of money, that was just a fact of life. It was one of the reasons Serpentine never bothered to purchase a vehicle of his own. That and, well, he had _other_ ways of getting around.

 _But, it is still good to have the necessary skills for situations like this_ he thought as he reflected on what had happened that morning, with Garnet asking him to pick up her car from the shop while she was at work. That woman worked about as many hours as he did.

Serpentine turned the maroon car onto the rough gravel road that ran alongside the beach, driving down it until he reached the large beach house that sat close to the shore. Turning off the car, he exited and locked it, and proceeded to make his way to the front door. He was about to open the door and step inside when the door, seeming to have a mind of its own, opened by itself, and a pair of arms reached out and wrapped around Serpentine’s waist, while their owner (who was somewhat short for his age), dangled from them in mid-air.

“ **Hi Serpentine!** ” shouted Steven as he hugged his friend. A small smile met Serpentine’s face as he received the boy’s enthusiastic greeting.

“Steven. You’re home from school early.” he said with a slight tease to his tone as Steven dropped down to the floor, allowing Serpentine into the beach house.

“Yeah, I finished all my work for my last class, so my teacher said it was alright if I wanted to leave. Besides, Connie was sick today so I didn’t have anyone I wanted to hang out with.” a pleasant smile came onto his face as he brought up his best friend. Serpentine became amused at what was probably a subconscious action. It didn’t take a genius to tell there was something interesting about Steven and Connie’s relationship. Then again, Peridot would probably try and debate that.

“Well, just call and let us know where you are next time. I don’t believe you want Pearl panicking about it any more than I do.”

“You got it, dude! Oh! By the way, I found some Cookie Cats at Co-op! Do you want some?” Steven shouted, almost hopping up and down with excitement.

“I think I do, Steven. Lead the way.” And so, after pulling off his shoes and hanging up Garnet’s keys, Serpentine followed Steven to the kitchen, where he proceeded to reach into the freezer and pulled out two Cookie Cat wrappers. Giving one to Serpentine, they unwrapped the feline sandwiches and began to eat. But Serpentine noticed something was off with Steven.

He _didn’t_ eat the ears first.

Serpentine was a religious person, he knew the importance of maintaining religious practices. And with all the years he had known Steven, eating the ears first might as well be called a religious practice for him. So he knew that Steven wouldn’t be eating his Cookie Cat like this unless something was wrong.

“Have you something on your mind, Steven?” Serpentine asked, seeming to startle the boy out of a state of deep thought.

“How were you able to tell?” Steven replied with a mix of shock and confusion. Serpentine smirked slightly.

“You didn’t eat the ears first.” He pointed out matter-of-factly, gesturing to the nearly finished Cookie Cat in Steven’s hand. That caused Steven to chuckle slightly. 

“You don’t miss anything, do you?” He questioned bashfully.

“It’s a habit I’ve picked up.” He admitted with grin. But then he got serious again.

“So what _is_ on your mind? He asked, hoping to help Steven with whatever it was that was troubling him.

“Well.......There’s been something that I’ve wanted to ask everybody about, it’s been eating away at me for awhile now. But whenever I try to ask, everybody just goes off to do their own thing. It’s kind of silly how we all live together, but we don’t actually spend a lot of time _together_. That probably didn’t make a lot of sense.” He said with a bit of frustration.

“No, I understand. It’s something I’ve expressed frustration with as well. We could all do well to interact more often.” Serpentine replied, now interested in what exactly Steven wanted to ask the group.

“If it helps, I can make sure everyone stays together after dinner. You’ll just have to hold this question of yours off until tonight. Do we have an accord?” He asked, out to Steven his hand out to Steven, who immediately took it in his own and shook it with vigor.

“Yes we do! Thank you so much, Serpentine!” he said, pulling the man into a tight hug.

 

**Later That Night**

“Is everyone finished eating? That includes you, Amethyst.” Serpentine called out to everyone as dinner was nearing it's end.

“Yeah, yeah, we’re all done Snake.” Amethyst called back as she swallowed the last of her pasta.

“Good then. Everyone head into the living room then, please.” he said, gesturing to the hallway that led to the aforementioned room.

“I’m busy tonight Serpentine, I can’t just put off my work for whatever you want us to do.” snapped Peridot, still as feisty as she always was.

“You can do it later tonight Peridot. Lord knows you get even less sleep than me.” he replied, making a quick signal to Lapis, who proceeded to go up behind Peridot, grab her around the waist, hoist her over her shoulder, and began to carry her to the living room.

“LAPIS! PUT ME DOWN!” she shouted indignantly, beating the bluenette woman’s back with her fists.

“No.” was the only response she got. Not wanting to suffer a similar fate, the others complied and made their way down the hall, settling down on the various couches and other pieces of furniture. Steven and Serpentine entered last, with Serpentine remaining standing, and Steven going to sit down next to Lapis, who, true to her word, _still_ hadn’t put Peridot down.

“So what is it that you’ve brought us all here for, Serpentine?” asked Opal as she curled up next to Sugilite and Sardonyx.

“Yeah Snake, I know you talk about getting us to do stuff together, but what you did back there was a little extreme.” Sugilite added, snaking an arm across Opal’s shoulders.

“You’ll have to ask Steven.” he replied, gesturing to the boy, whose face flushed considerably now that everyone’s attention was on him.

“Something wrong, Schtu-ball?” asked his father, Greg.

“Yeah, any mean kid you need us to hunt down for ya?” asked Ruby, smacking her fist into her open palm, causing Sapphire to burst into a fit of giggles.

“Any cute girls you like and want some advice for?” asked Alexandrite, oblivious to how embarrassed Steven got at that. She never did have much tact.

“You mean _other_ than Connie?” asked Malachite, who seemed to have even less tact then her girlfriend (probably why they got along so well).

“Malachiiiiiite!” Steven whined, the blush on his face only getting worse.

“What? It’s pretty obvious to everybody, Steven.” she replied, seeming to enjoy herself.

“That’s funny, I never noticed it.” added Jasper.

“Jazzy, you never notice anything. You didn’t even notice _my_ crush on you.” said Bismuth, bumping her shoulder against Jasper’s, who muttered something under her breath and ruffled her girlfriend’s rainbow dreadlocks.

“GUYS! It isn’t any of those things!” Steven shouted, calling everyone’s attention back to him.

“Well, what is it then, Steven? Nobody try to guess this time.” said Rose, pointing to all the previous offenders.

“Okay, thanks Mom.” said Steven, clearing his throat.

“Are you sure it doesn’t have to do with Connie?” asked Malachite, hoping to get one last lick in.

“No, but it is something that Connie talked to me about that made me curious about this.” he replied.

“Connie told me about how she learned about the ‘nuclear family’, which consists of the mother, father, and children living with one another. She said that was the most common home setting you could get. When I told her I didn’t just live with my parents, but also with all of you, she asked me why that was.” he continued, the nature of his question slowly making itself known.

“And the other thing is, every time I mention one of you to someone at school, it seems like they know you from somewhere else. Lars actually fainted when I told him that I shared a house with the Purple Puma!” he exclaimed while gesturing to Amethyst, who smiled at the mention of her wrestling stage name.

“So, I guess what my question is, is: how did you guys come to live all together in the same house, and why is it that you’re so well-known?” he finished, finally getting to ask his question. The group sat silent for a few moments, contemplating this, until Sardonyx piped up.

“So you want a ‘How I Met Your Mother’ story, darling?” she asked, ever the master of TV and movie trivia.

“Yeah, but not just Mom and Dad, I want to hear about it from everybody! Speaking of which, you two never told me how you met.” he said, turning to look at Greg and Rose. 

“Was it at a concert?” he asked.

“Now Steven, we can’t make everything in this canon.” said Sardonyx.

“I guess so. There wouldn’t be any story to tell then.” he agreed.

“It’s alright Steven, we’ll tell you the story.” said Garnet with a grin.

“But where to start?” she asked to nobody in particular. They all sat there in silence, trying to think of a place where they could begin. Then Serpentine snapped his fingers.

“I know. I’d advise you to get comfortable, everyone. This is the story of how your father met your mother (not to mention the rest of us).” he said. Following his advice, everyone got comfortable, all of them pleasantly happy at the notion of going back through old memories. Serpentine cleared his throat, and then began.

“In hindsight, that probably would have gone down as the greatest cafeteria brawl in the history of our high school.......”


	2. ‘The Good Old Days’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, I’m sorry it took me so long to make this. Even with my schedule, I have plenty of free time, and the fact that it took me almost a month to finish this is unacceptable to me. If I’m going to do this, I need to make more of a commitment to writing this at given oppurtunities.
> 
> Also, special thanks to that guest who kudosed me. Thanks again, whoever you are.
> 
> Other then that, let’s get to it.

But nobody was looking in hindsight at the time, because it had gotten them all sent to detention.

It was a funny thing about childhood. You only seem to remember the good things about it, like say the seemingly endless amounts of free time you had back then compared to now, but never things like getting stuck in after-school detention for three hours straight. Although, this mattered very little to Peridot, what with the way that she carried herself in a professional, respectable demeanour, already thought of herself as an adult. As did her mother.

Which was only going to make explaining this fiasco to her mother even more difficult. Why had she gotten into a fight? What had sparked her impulsive rush to Jasper’s defence? Maybe it was that ‘rebellious teenage spirit’ that the school’s hall monitor, Mrs. Agate, rambled on about quelling, along with things like _Students think they can get away with anything nowadays_ or _If the administration brought back more severe means of punishment, it would keep the students in line._ Ideas that Peridot favoured, although she had admittedly grown tired of hearing them, and with all she had seen in her short time at high school (not to mention what she’d done at lunch), she’d begun to question the effectiveness of said ideas.

So, while listening to that Lazuli girl make some particularly barbed comments to what she could basically call the only friends she’d ever had, with the comments towards Jasper being the most insulting, Peridot had made quite the spontaneous reaction. Taking a soda can (this bitch _wasn’t_ empty), Peridot had loaded, taken aim, fired.......

And missed. Rather than hitting her intended target, she had instead thrown wide and struck the nearby pale ballerina, Pearl, square in the forehead, sending her to the sawdust half-concious.

Nothing like a little physical violence to get people riled up.

The fight escalated quickly after that, eventually getting so out of control that people began to lose track of who was fighting who, going so far as having Amethyst and Pearl, who were supposed to be on the same side, began trading blows (then again, the sight of those two quarreling is going to be as common as the sight of bad jokes in this story, so maybe it wasn’t so _accidental_ ).

Eventually the bell that signaled the end of lunch rang, but even those that could hear it over the ruckus ignored it. Noticing the obvious lack of students in their classes, teachers checked the cafeteria and caught all of the perpetrators red-handed. After finally grinding the fight to a halt, the teachers took everyone involved down to the main office.

After the vice-principal spoke with each of them privately, and Pearl had been taken to the infirmary for a large and oddly circular bruise, courtesy of the soda can, they were all marched down to the school’s oddly large library by Mrs. Agate, going off on her ramblings yet again.

Once there, Pearl turned to Peridot and gave her one hell of a death-stare, enough to make a mother jealous, and looked to make her way over to her, but was stopped by a hand on her shoulder and an even look from her friend, Garnet. Instead, they and the rest of their clique made their way to a large table at the opposite end of the room, although that didn’t stop Jasper from defiantly placing an arm in front of Peridot, with a face that just screamed _Oh try me, bitch!_

But before anybody could say anything else, the door opened once more, and Mrs. Agate walked in, flanked by (ominous musical crescendo) the principal, Westlynn Almaz. She entered the library with long, commanding strides, her sickly white clothing becoming the brightest thing in sight, simply demanding the attention of every person in the room.

Once she had reached the midpoint between the two groups, she had those that were still standing sit down with a slight gesture of her hand. Then, with a sweet voice and a motherly smile that everyone, even Peridot, had trouble believing to be genuine, she spoke.

“Well now. This is quite the situation I’ve heard about now, isn’t it? Let’s see what the children have gotten my attention for _this_ time.”

**Present Day**

“Wait wait wait wait wait!” Steven shouted, flailing his arms about wildly.

“You guys. The people who have been friends for as long-No scratch that, even _longer_ than I remember, and who live all together in this big house: met each other by getting into a fight?” Rose smiled.

“Not what you were expecting, huh kiddo?” she asked. Greg made a face.

“Hey now, I didn’t do any fighting.” he pouted, his pride seemingly as easily injured as peacock’s.

“Well then what did you get sent to detention for, _Gregory_?” questioned Amethyst, apparently lacking a total recollection of that day herself.

“I took my guitar out to the cafeteria to practice for a bit. Unfortunately, the school didn’t really like it when you took equipment out of the band room.” he replied, drawing a wistful sigh and nod of agreement from Amethyst, probably reminiscing about many a smuggled percussion.

“You know, we still technically don’t know who won.......” Alexandrite mused, but Malachite quickly jumped on her (proverbially, don’t get any ideas).

“It wasn’t your side, if that’s what you’re thinking.” she muttered.

“Still going to accuse me of cheating Mala?” she asked pointedly, although everybody could see that she was smirking playfully. Malachite whipped around, now annoyed at what sounded like a return to a long unsolvable argument. You know, the ones that eventually don’t get resolved just for the sake of a joke.

“ALEX! WE ARE NOT DOING THIS RIGHT NOW! ESPECIALLY NOT IN FRONT OF STEVEN!” she shouted, making everyone snigger.

“Now this really does feel like the old days.” Sapphire added quietly. Malachite instantly wheeled on her.

“ **SHUT UP, SAPPHIRE!** ” she screeched at the top of her lungs. That was it. Everyone burst into star-struck laughter, with Ruby falling off the couch and beating the floor with her fist as she laughed uncontrollably.

Malachite just sat still through all of it.

“ _I’m surrounded by idiots._ ” she seethed, earning her a tight squeeze from Alexandrite.

“Isn’t that why you love us, _Scar_?” she asked. Malachite rolled her eyes.

“Don’t remind me.” she muttered. Everyone fell into a comfortable silence for a few moments. Then Steven turned to Serpentine.

“Hold on. What about you? Nobody said anything about you, Serpentine.”

“That’s because I wasn’t in the fight, Steven.”

“You weren’t? Then why did _you_ get sent to detention?” he asked. Sardonyx jumped up to answer that.

“Oh Steven dear, he did something way, _way_ worse than what we did. Even sweet old Opal here can’t forget what he said. It was right when Ms. Almaz got into the library.......”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almaz is Russian for a certain word. I’ll give you two guesses as to what said word is.
> 
> This story will have multiple perspectives which can change several times per chapter, so I’ll do my best to make it clear who we’re viewing this story through. 
> 
> Also, if you wanted to visualize Greg while he was playing guitar during the fight, I’ll give you one reference: Meet the Engineer. Enough said.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this, and I’ll see you next chapter. Friendzone, AWAY!

**Author's Note:**

> Was that good? I hope so, or I just wasted a good 5 minutes of your time. Part of me feels lazy that I made the first chapter to be set in the future, showing that yes, everything does work out in the end. But, that’s my story and I intend to stick to it.  
> I have Driver’s Education on Tuesdays and Thursdays now, so that’s going to make it a lot harder for me to write stuff with that incorporated into my schedule, but I doubt anybody will really care that much. Till next time. See you in the Friendzone!


End file.
